The use of rotary type mowers for mowing lawns has become quite common in recent years. This type of mower has a rotor supported for rotation about a vertical axis with a plurality of cutting blades extending at radially spaced locations therefrom and the blades are supported within a circular housing having an outlet passage. The rotor and blades are driven by a motor to perform the grass cutting and the blades act as a centrifugal fan which produces a draught that blows the cut grass from the housing through the outlet passage.
The disposal of the grass clippings and other debris resulting from the mower has become a major problem in the care of today's lawns, particularly in residential areas. As is well known, the increased use of fertilizers and chemicals on lawns has resulted in thicker, more luxurious lawns. To maintain an attractive appearance for such lawns, it has become rather standard practice to mower. the grass clippings, which is usually done by a grass catching bag attached to the outlet passage of the motor. However, such bags require frequent emptying, particularly when the growth is heavy so that the homeowner is spending more time in the frequent removal of the grass catching bag and the dumping of the bag into some other receptacles. In addition, in many residential areas, the clippings must be placed in a certain type of bag in order for them to be picked up by refuse collectors which results in additional time required for the bagging of the grass clippings.
This problem becomes even more acute when utilizing larger type self-propelled vehicles which are commonly referred to as "riding mowers." With an average or larger size riding mower, the size of the rotor and blades is many times twice the size of an ordinary push type or self-propelled rotary mower.
Confronted with this problem, many proposals have been made for larger grass catching assemblies for riding mowers. Some of these include large trailing vehicles which can accumulate a large amount of grass clippings. Others are of a smaller type such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,716,977, issued Feb. 20, 1973.
While grass catching assemblies of this type to some degree partially solve some of the problems, that is the collection of the grass clippings, there is still the continual problem of transferring the clippings from the catcher assembly into what has become a conventional type of disposal plastic bag for use in residential areas and one that is of suitable size as to be picked up by refuse collectors.